Posts Tagged ‘Fred Wilson’

This recent blog post from Fred Wilson really captured the main reason I’m trying so hard to make this blog a sustainable success. His post is about owning your online brand, and a few of the main reasons to do that:

You don’t control the internet. Unless Google is reading this. In which case, I’m sorry. For most of us, others are going to write things and post pictures of us. Our image, whether good or bad, is portrayed in a context that is out of our control at certain points. Yes, we can ask friends to take a Facebook photo down ( ibanking and consulting-track MBA students do that all the time during recruiting), but some things are out of our control. By owning a blog, or twitter, or creating specific themes in our social media profiles, we can offset those portrayals and tilt them towards the image we prefer.

Blog as Resume: When you don’t have a background in a specific area, or even when you do, and when you want to highlight that experience, a blog allows you the chance to showcase your thoughts, what you’re learning, and really drive home your dedication to certain areas. By the time I graduate with an MBA, I want to be able to point back to my blog and say- “I’ve been writing about tech, innovation, and start-ups for two years; here is how I think.” Fred has a nice quote:- “We have hired all of our junior investment professionals largely on the basis of their blogs, not their resumes or linkedin profiles. You can learn so much more about a person by reading their blog.”

I’ve talked to other students at Darden about blogging- there are two main reasons they don’t blog. The first is time, which I understand. If it isn’t a priority for you, you won’t write, and the blog will die. So yeah, time is hard, especially if it isn’t really important to you.

The second reason is a bit stranger though- a lot of people say they’re worried that they’ll be punished for what’s on their blog. Punished in the sense that a future employer might not respect what what they’ve written, or might disagree with them. Punished in the sense that they may seem ignorant in what they write, and that might count against them.

Fred Wilson is a very well known VC and blogger. A few weeks ago he started a blog series called MBA Mondays, during which he explains a topic he learned in business school- and does so in a simple way that allows anyone to quickly catch-on. It’s a great series (I actually use it to supplement the MBA Finance class I’m currently taking!) and he’s covered some important subjects. Links to his first three Monday posts below:

Net Present Value (NPV): A way of evaluating future money (say, future money you earn) according to the value that future money has now. So if someone said “sell me the next 10 years of your salary,” what would that money be worth now? It’s linked to the second topic.

Time Value of Money: Fred admits he should have blogged about this before NPV, but better late then never. As he puts it, time value of money is the idea that “money today is generally worth more than money tomorrow.” Determining that time value of money allows the determination of the NPV.

Compounding Interest: a form of interest that (simply put), adds the interest being earned to the principal, so that it compounds as it earns. He explains all this much better….

It’s a very cool series- check it out every Monday and enjoy!

Seth

Why the Name?

“Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.” ~ Nolan Bushnell